Comfort Ye My People

Comfort Ye My People

Note: Yes, this piece is somewhat religious in nature. However, please do not allow that to scare you away. I think I can promise nearly every reader, of whatever creed, a line or idea or turn of phrase to carry away. I think you will be glad you read it.

“Comfort ye.” A sombre lilt of strings — no reeds, and certainly no horns — overlaid with the smoked glass of flute, opens. (The horn players are busy writing and reading, oblivious to a world which shall not require their attentions for several minutes.)
An overture of predawn and long, desert mountain trails, bears no premonitions of the victorious “Rejoice, O Ye Daughters of Zion!” and “Hallelujah!” to come. Indeed, it seems very fitting to that “story we know”¹: yet one more tale of heartache and a supposedly-inspiring moral victory somewhere near the end. But this story — that story which kept Handel sequestered months in its telling — is far from a mere moral victory (though it may be rightly called a victory of The Moral).

*****

“The real meaning of Christmas” is a phrase lost now on me and most Americans: it has become a trite “ad-word”, sermonzing catch-all, and moral to any holidy tear-jerker. It’s a phrase hijacked by anyone who wants to say that Christmas isn’t just about getting, but it’s about {giving, family, unity, etc.}. Everyone, down to the most irreligious, has heard at least one rendition of the First Christmas meant to inspire a holy fear or love or somehow-restored devotion. The thrill of that is long since gone.

What is not gone is Handel. It is one thing to tell a story of a young engaged woman found pregnant with the son of God. It is quite another to begin, not with the Anunciation (as is the manner of most religious, due to Catholic tradition), but with God’s deep desire to send comfort to His people.

Jesus was sent with the commission to “comfort ye my people”, God’s people being the Jews. With all the persecution they had faced, and were facing, and admittedly though their own folly, they were still God’s people. The same God who in the Old Testament promised Abraham that a blessing to all nations would come from his line² fulfilled that promise in the time of His people’s greatest need.

*****

Yes, sing the “Hallelujah!” chorus. It is fitting. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain”* to receive our praises. But sing “Comfort Ye My People” as well. Handel well knew the real real meaning of Christmas. To him, it was worth what most people would never give up, for friends, family, or even self: comfort. For him, it was a story worth all in the telling, and giving all in the hearing.

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1.

“The Story We Know”

The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, Just fine,
And Good-bye ant the end. That’s every story we know,

And why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

And then it’s Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
Day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
And Good-bye. In the end, this is a story we know

So well we don’t turn the page, or look below
the picture, or follow the words to the next line:
The way to begin is always the same Hello.

But one night, through the latticed window, snow
Begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
Good-bye is the end of every story we know

That night, and when we close the curtains, oh,
we hold each other against that cold white sign
Of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know.

— Martha Collins

2. “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” — Genesis 22:17–18

First Sign of Winter

First Sign of Winter

Written Friday, December 10^th, 2004, in Pensacola, Florida.

The hibiscus are blooming. In the whipping breezes, long hibiscus branches rising from the ground swing and whirl their tip-tops of Hawai’ian brightness. The hibiscus are blooming, and winter is coming to Florida.

It is funny to me, that whiteness which covers so many Christmas pictures. What is it? And why are the trees dead? How, in a black-and-white death world, can one see the joy of Christmas? And my Grandmother asks how I can get into the Christmas spirit without snow!

How to Raise a Perfect Little Angel

How to Raise a Perfect Little Angel

or, Training and Trusting

Of course you’ve heard teenagers and even younger children claim, “My parents don’t trust me.” Every child psychologist will tell parents that the important thing is that they trust their children: trustworthiness is sure to follow. I’m sorry, but I’m just not used to paying for something and waiting six to eight weeks for delivery with no assurance of delivery or recourse when delivery is not made. Trustworthiness is something which results from training, and not from previously-doled-out trust.

Enter Joel L. He’s a second-grader in my Sunday School class at the Campus Church, Pensacola, FL. He’s also the most trustworthy and best-behaved child in the class. In fact, when I need someone to deliver something to the Junior Church teacher (Junior Church follows Sunday School, and is in a different classroom), he is the only student whom I have ever so much as considered for the errand. Joel can spout off a semester’s-worth of Bible verses at the drop of a hat (“How about the one before that, Joel? Do you remember that one?”), answer questions about last week’s story like nobody’s business, and sit still to boot! I have an idea. Let’s follow him for a moment to see where his behaviour and trustworthiness originated: from trust, or from training.

Friday, December 17^th, 2004. Sports Center, Pensacola Christian College, Pensacola, FL.
The semester had officially ended at 9:45 that morning. Most of the student body had left, and most of us stragglers were in the Sports Center (gym, weight rooms, bowling, racquetball, ice skating, and miniature golf, along with pool, foosball, and places to just sit and chat or play games) killing time. My friends and I were sitting around watching The Artistry of Ivan¹ on Rachel’s computer and making small talk. Suddenly Joel came (from nowhere, as far as I could figure) and stood over me (I was seated on the carpet). He and I chatted a bit, and he eventually sat down to watch the movie with us.

After not too long, Mrs. L, his mom, came over. I stood up to introduce myself (as the recipient of the cookies she had sent with him to Sunday School the previous Sunday to give to his teachers), and ended up in a conversation. I mentioned rather quickly how much I enjoyed having Joel in my class, and how well he always behaved himself.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that! I worry about him . . . When we do school, the girls always do their work, but he always wants to go outside and play.”

Are you seeing where I am going with this? The kid was homeschooled (which I had found out a couple of weeks earlier — but which in no way surprised me, given his beyond-years maturity). That’s nearly a given these days when you run across the rare decorous, well-behaved child. That aside, however, did you see how even the mother of my best student was not assuming of his behaviour?

A child can sense the difference between assumption and expectation, I think. Assumption states that the child will be trustworthy because I trust him. Expectation states that the child will be trustworthy because I train him; and because I, knowing that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”², watch for the untrustworthiness when (not “if”) it crops up so I can immediately and lovingly correct it.

And you know, that is love.³ A kid like Joel is going to grow up and go places. A kid like D_____ (unanimously the worst-behaved kid in the class) is going to need some help. But you know, Joel’s folks could blow it. They could start trusting him — who, as sweet and obedient as he is, has a deceitful heart and a sin nature just like you or I. And D_____’s parents could stop trusting him and start training him. That would make all the difference.

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1. The Artistry of Ivan is a student-produced documentary of Hurricane Ivan. Daniel Allen, a student at Pensacola Christian College, arranged for footage to be taken throughout the campus during the lockdown for the hurricane itself, as well as interviewing numerous faculty, staff, administration, students, and Pensacola residents after the hurricane had passed. The two-disc set, including a half-hour documentary and a large library of still images and short video clips, may be ordered from Brand X Multimedia by calling 815-212-3564 or 815-886-4144. The cost is $15US +S&H. It is well worth fifteen dollars to see the good coming from Ivan — the good that only God can bring from a catastrophe. As Mr. Allen said, “Ivan’s terror was not random or evil. It was all part of the Painter’s perspective to show forth the glory of God.” The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. — Nahum 1:3b

2. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” — Jeremiah 17:9

3. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” — Proverbs 13:24
c.f. Proverbs 22:15 and 23:13